Gutters attached to the home either use a spike (long nail) and ferrule method or a hidden hanger with screw anchoring method. Some of the plastic gutters and half-round gutters may use a bracket attached to the fascia board. For the spike to hold the gutter securely, the spike must be driven into solid wood.
In normal modern construction the roof system consists of a 2×4 truss system, which creates the pitch of the roof and supports the roof decking. These trusses are generally spaced every 24 inches. The fascia board is the trim board the gutter sits on and is attached to the tail ends of the trusses. Using the spike and ferrule method of gutter attachment, the spike is driven through the gutter, through the fascia trim board and into the solid 2×4 wood truss. If the installer missed the 2×4 when driving the gutter spike, the spike is simply floating in air once it passes through the fascia board and has nothing to grip to.
No matter how many times the spike is hammered back in, with only air to grip – it will soon pull out again. In other cases, the spike has hit the truss tail, but over the course of the years, the wood has expanded and again, the spike has nothing to grip to. In these cases, the spike can be redirected a half inch of so and re-nailed into solid wood. While the spike and ferrule method was the standard for years, many gutter installation companies have changed to some form of the hidden hanger with screw anchoring method.